Barry Callebaut sales 2.6 billion Swiss franc in the 1H

In the first six months, of the group's fiscal year ended February 29, 2008., the company sales more than 612,000 tons of products. It is third time more than the industry avarage.

 Sales were up 21.1 percent at 2.585
billion francs, meeting the consensus forecast of 2.593 billion.
Barry Callebaut AG. reported a slightly
lower first-half net profit of 124.4 million Swiss francs, down 0.2
percent from last year and missing market expectations as rising raw
material costs and investment in new plants in Russia and China
offset rising demand.
The Swiss chocolate maker's bottom line
was further hit by the sale of a minority interest in French
chocolate maker Jacquot and higher-than-usual tax rate.
Analysts polled by Thomson Financial
News had forecast net profit in the range of 140.5 million to 157.7
million francs, or 147.2 million on average.
EBIT in the period rose by 1.3 percent
to 200.4 million francs, also missing analyst consensus forecasts of
213.5 million francs.
Barry Callebaut said that profitability
was impacted by rising raw material costs which were not passed on to
clients until Jan. 1, 2008 as well as the start-up of new factories
in Russia and China.
In January, Barry Callebaut raised its
mid-term performance targets for the four-year period from 2007/08 to
2010/11, with top-line growth doubled to 9-11 percent, after winning
major outsourcing contracts from some of the world's largest brand
producers, including The Hershey (nyse: HSY – news – people )
Company, Nestle SA (other-otc: NSRGF.PK – news – people ). and
Cadbury Schweppes Plc. (nyse: CSG – news – people )
The group had previously warned that
expansion to meet production demands for these contracts are
initially associated with high fixed costs and low capacity
utilization, potentially weighing on profitability.